1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a portable safety container or bin for the temporary storage and transport prior to disposal of waste organic solvents in and from such areas as laboratories.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A wide variety of solvents are in extensive use for purification, test and other laboratory procedures and in such uses may become mixed with other solvents and/or with aqueous liquids and/or diverse dissolved solids to an extent which may render them not immediately, or not at all, recoverable. Such mixtures may comprise highly volatile and inflammable materials such as ether and petroleum ether, highly volatile toxic materials such as chloroform, carbon tetrachloride and benzene, and hydrolysable materials such as halogenated hydrocarbons and carboxylic acid esters which, in contact with water, hydrolyse to produce corrosively acidic materials, the more rapidly if there is present in the mixture a water-miscible solvent such as acetone or dioxane, also in common use, which may homogenise the mixture. Laboratory waste solvents may also on occasion contain oxidizing agents such as the oxides of chromium, osmium and ruthenium or reducing agents such as the metal hydrides that on contact with water would generate a strongly basic medium which would moreover de-gas.
Such mixtures thus possess in varying degree fire, toxicity and corrosion hazards and, since they may not legally be flushed down conventional drainage systems, they must be stored in or near the premises where they arise until sufficient quantities have accumulated to justify their disposal in some alternative way or other. The design and selection of materials of construction for containers for such temporary storage present serious problems which have not hitherto been satisfactorily solved, from the points of view of fire avoidance, frangibility, and susceptibility to corrosion or direct attack by solvents. Thus, glass containers such as carboys, whilst nearly ideal from the point of view of resistance to chemical or solvent attack, are easily broken by impact or over-heating or pressure differential with the atmosphere; whilst metal containers, such as steel cans even when lead lined, are found in use to corrode rapidly, particularly at the base where penetration is least acceptable. Moulded plastics containers such as those of polyethylene or PVC are neither resistant enough to solvent attack not to abrasion by rough handling nor to heat to be suitable per se, whilst more resistant materials such PTFE are too expensive to be worth consideration.